For the movie:

Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The naked woman who pops up on John Spartan's video screen in his apartment. He's just as confused, too. The novelization indicates the purpose of the scene is to demonstrate to him that video-calling is the norm in the future.

Chaotic Good: Edgar Friendly is a slovenly man who flouts the saccharine tighly-controlled society of 2032 because he believes strongly in people being allowed to make their own choices. Unfortunately this puts him at odds with the Lawful Evil extremist leader who unfreezes a psychotic criminal to kill him.

—Edgar Friendly: (To Spartan) You see, according to *Cocteau's* plan. *I'm* the enemy. Because I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy who would sit in the greasy spoon and think "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the big rack of barbecued spare ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I *want* high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter, and buckets of cheese, alright? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinatti in a non-smoking section. I wanna run around naked with green jell-o all over my body reading a Playboy magazine. Why? Because maybe I feel the need to, okay, pal? I've seen the future, you know what it is. It's made by a 47 year-old virgin in gray pajamas soaking in a bubble bath, drinking a broccoli milkshake and thinking "I'm an Oscar-Meyer Wiener". You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau's way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Your other option: come down here, maybe starve to death.

Complete Monster: Simon Phoenix, an Ax-Crazy criminal from the gang-ruled era of Los Angeles in the late 20th century, indulged in theft, kidnapping, rape, arson, and murder to his heart's content. He holds 30 people hostage and demands a ransom when in fact he had already killed them all, and frames hero cop John Spartan for their deaths. They are both sentenced to cryo-statis and only woken up in 2032 when the new city of San Angeles has become a crime-free nanny state. Simon breaks out of confinement by gouging out a guard's eye to bypass the retinal scanner and indulges in his freedom to be a maniac and spread chaos again, brutally murdering almost everyone who gets in his way. It turns out he was unfrozen by the benevolent dictator Dr. Raymond Cocteau to assassinate Edgar Friendly, the underground Rebel Leader who has been trying to undo the oppressive system. Simon sets out on this task with murderous glee, killing many innocent bystanders in the process. He eventually teams up with his old gang after they're unfrozen and murders Cocteau to start a new lawless dystopia. He starts by unfreezing every violent criminal locked up in the cryo-prison, before gunning down all the technicians because he no longer has any use for them.

Looking through the Cryo-Prison inmate list, Phoenix exclaims "Jeffrey Dahmer? I love that guy!" In 1994, Dahmer was bludgeoned to death in prison; the line was subsequently cut from a number of broadcasts.

The name "Scott Peterson" comes up during Huxley's access of the parole hearings. Presumably, this is not the man who kidnapped and murdered his pregnant wife in 2003.

Spartan crashes the 1970 442 through the floor of an Oldsmobile dealership in 2032. Oldsmobile was discontinued by GM in 2004.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is briefly mentioned as a former President, with Huxley explaining that his popularity forced an amendment to the Constitution to allow him to run. Now, Schwarzenegger is a former governor of California, and there is a serious and fairly popular movement to amend the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become president.

When the future cop car was jumping through the SAPD sign, the letters and symbols were each engraved on a separate plate of glass. Just before the car hits it, all but one of the plates are pre-broken; the unbroken one has a broken one on the other side of it, making it obvious it wasn't the car that did it.

While it's more Makeup Failure, but keep an eye on Phoenix's Heterochromia. Several times in the film his blue and brown eye noticeably switch sides between shots.

When Simon's hideout is blown up at the beginning, you can clearly hear people in the background cheering at this extraordinary demolition. note While in-universe, it could be other criminals cheering at the destruction, in real life, it's probably the noise of onlookers or crew; they actually destroyed a real building for that shot, an old Power & Water in Los Angeles that was in fact scheduled for demolition at any rate

Tastes Like Diabetes: San Angeles in the year 2032 is squeaky-clean to the point of absurdity, with commercial jingles from The '50s as the most popular genre of music and everyone relentlessly cheerful at all times. You're almost cheering Phoenix on, at least at first, if for no other reason than you want to see some chaos inflicted on this smiley, chipper city.

The museum's 20th century weapons exhibit has functional and loaded weapons on display with relatively light security. Even discounting Simon Phoenix as an Outside-Context Problem for the setting, Edgar Friendly could have done a lot of damage if he'd ever decided to do a smash-and-grab on them.

Cocteau feels comfortable freeing Phoenix because Phoenix' conditioning prevents Phoenix from killing Cocteau... but Cocteau never considered that Phoenix could order someone else to kill him.

What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Some have described Demolition Man as being one of the most libertarian movies ever made. One of the film's villains is a scientist who has basically created the ultimate nanny-state, where everything deemed bad for you has been outlawed. And Edgar Friendly and his followers, who are initially portrayed as terrorists, turn out to be sympathetic freedom fighters who want to make their own decisions without the overbearing government's influence.

For the pinball:

Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Some players will always select the "Freeze" award on the Cryo-Claw — it provides progress towards multiballs.

So Bad, It's Good: The promotional video for the pinball, which attempts to duplicate the atmosphere and special effects of the movie on a shoestring budget, while hyping up the game's gun grip controllers, all intermixed with actual film clips. It fails spectacularly, but has an innocent appeal, like watching an eight-year-old attempt to duplicate a Michael Bay film in his backyard.

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